Likud blasts AG indictment announcement against PM as ‘political persecution’

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ruling Likud party comments on Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit’s announcement of bribery, fraud and breach of trust charges against him, pending a hearing

“Nobody is surprised by the attorney general’s announcement that came after three years of relentless pressure on him by the media, the left and judiciary bureaucrats to indict the prime minister at any cost — even when there isn’t anything, just to have it happen before the elections,” Likud says in a statement released immediately after Mandelblit’s announcement.

“This is political persecution,” it alleges. “The witch hunt against the prime minister began with an attempt to frame him with four bribery cases. Already, before the hearing, three of them have collapsed. The rest of the claims will similarly collapse like a house of cards when the prime minister confronts the state witnesses, bring dozens of witnesses who strangely weren’t questioned and present the documents and protocols that prove all of the prime minister’s actions and decisions were lawful.”

“A unilateral publication of the attorney general’s announcement a month before the elections, without giving the prime minister an opportunity to disprove these false claims is a blatant and unprecedended intervention in the elections,” Likud adds.